


All the Times I've Held You

by kidcarma



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Despair Era (Dangan Ronpa), Drabbles, Hugs, Jabberwock Island (Dangan Ronpa), M/M, Requests, Towa City, prompts from tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24994864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kidcarma/pseuds/kidcarma
Summary: Snippets of hugs they've shared.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito, Kamukura Izuru/Komaeda Nagito
Comments: 10
Kudos: 165





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i rbed another prompt list on tumblr- this time, it was for different kinds of hugs! admittedly i had a more difficult time w these than the kiss ones but who am i to back down from a challenge? i still hope u can enjoy them nonetheless!

17\. a hug where one muse stops the other from collapsing | Kamukoma

On wobbling knees he carries her and himself through the broken stretch of city that had faced the brunt of the damage. A stretch of buildings toppled, smoke billowing above them in tall, spiraling columns, shattered glass and upturned nails scattered across the pavement.

He keeps walking though.

He’s got somewhere to go, somewhere to be, someone to be with, and he can’t keep them waiting.

Komaeda shifts her weight again with a grunt, his one useful hand tucked behind himself to hold her up, the other hanging limp at his side. Does careful not to disturb her, but it seems she’s so used to tuning out the sounds of the screams around her, being batted around, that she isn’t bothered at all.

It’s only when they get to the outskirts of the city does the pain of the slashes on his thighs begin to creep in past his defenses again. Because he’s almost there, almost at a place where he can finally sit, and it’s like his body knows, has been counting the steps, every limb on edge of their anticipation to collapse.

He ducks through their doorway, extra careful to go even lower this time so Monaca’s head can clear the entrance and because he’s knocked his own head into the two by four nailed there more times than he can count on the one good hand he has. But when he crouches, it does something funny to his legs. Doesn’t like the way he’s changed the way they’re distributing weight, how they’re straining to hold him up, so he only makes it a foot into the room before his knees buckle then give out under him entirely.

Well. Kamukura’s there, of course. In an instant, right in front of him, arms looped around him to keep him from face planting so violently into the concrete floor. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s had to patch up a busted lip, a black eye- Komaeda considers himself lucky to still own all of his teeth. Lucky.

“Kamukura,” he smiles brightly despite the pain. Leans into the touch and allows himself the selfishness because otherwise he’s going to fall and that would be more troublesome for Kamukura to deal with in the long run, if he gets even more injured from it, which he certainly would. “Perfect timing. Perfect as always. I’m sorry you have to waste your talents on helping someone so detestable and clumsy as me, but-“

“You have a child.”

“What?” Komaeda stops. His head turns slightly gesturing to her in recognition. Somehow she still has managed to remain asleep. “Oh, yes. Towa.” Not like Kamukura doesn’t already know everything about everyone around, but Komaeda gives her name as an explanation anyway, as a courtesy. “She was crushed by rubble, and well, I couldn’t just leave her there! She’s going to be very important.”

“I see,” Kamukura says, vague as he does.

His arms are still wrapped around Komaeda’s middle, bearing all the weight to keep him from toppling to the ground. And when the silence lulls between them, Komaeda realizes as such, face flushing as he registers just how close they are, just how tightly Kamukura is holding him.  
  


Hugging him.

Komaeda doesn’t think Kamukura has ever hugged him. One of free will and not one Komaeda had forced on him, clinging, desperate. And maybe it’s a shoddy excuse for a hug, but Komaeda will gladly take it.

“I will get something to disinfect the wounds on your legs.”

“Thank you, Kamukura.”

22\. a protective hug | Kamukoma

Kamukura is unassuming, easy to glaze over in the thick of a crowd. He blends into the background even when there are only a few people in the room, a benefit when stealth comes in handy, and he can keep up that facade for as long as he wants. For as long as he wants to be unnoticed, underestimated.

He can flip some hidden switch within himself, and that’s why Komaeda is struggling to feel Kamukura’s presence behind him at all. It wouldn’t a surprise if he’d left Komaeda entirely to fend for himself.

But a quick glance in his peripheral tells Komaeda that is not the case, and that Kamukura is still there.

He wonders why. It would be so much more convenient to abandon him- how he hasn’t outgrown his usefulness, even now, is a mystery. But for some reason Kamukura has chosen to stand his ground, just a few inches behind Komaeda, close enough that if Komaeda leaned back his spine would collide with Kamukura’s sternum, and oh is he tempted to do so. Doesn’t, of course, because that would be impertinent. Especially now, when they’re being surrounded by a handful of men, wielding weapons of various threat.

A baseball bat with nails driven into the body, a wrench, a sledgehammer. Fists, if they’re desperate. None of the offending items raised but their presence alone is enough to sound alarm bells.

“You look lost,” one of them says and maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. But Komaeda keeps grinning. Even when Kamukura doesn’t dignify them with an answer. They all take a few steps closer.

“We aren’t unreasonable folk. Directions- could give you them, help you get to where you’re going.” The man grins. “But everything’s got a price. Especially nowadays. Perhaps we can make some kind of trade.”

Ah.

A bolt runs down Komaeda’s spine, inhales sharply, fights every instinct in his body to spin around.

Kamukura has, apparently, flipped the switch.

Has decided he no longer needs to make himself unassuming, unthreatening- Komaeda can’t see it but he can pin the look from memory, being stared into, piercing red eyes, an inescapable gaze, etched into his mind and he knows it by heart. Knows it must be what their aggressors are seeing too, because their faces shift, falter, and they almost shrivel back a step.

An arm slithers around his midsection from behind, Kamukura’s free hand coming to rest on his shoulder and tugging him back with both grips, as though one wasn’t enough. Holds Komaeda to his chest, not tight enough to smother but still just as safe, and Komaeda shivers when he hears the words next to his ear.

“That won’t be necessary.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last one in this batch is a genderbend which ik some folks arent a fan of reading- i didnt update the tags to reflect this as it will likely be the only one out of the requests i get but its mentioned in the actual body of the fic too before u get to it, so no worries if that's not ur jam! feel free to skip it. i hope u enjoy!

4\. a hug from behind | Kamukoma

They’re granted no more courtesy than a small barred window that lets a bit of light in. Keeps the small, desolate room from being plunged into darkness entirely.

Not that it would be a problem, of course, if that were the case. Kamukura’s eyes were made to function even in the harshest conditions, and Komaeda is content to be pulled along for the ride. As long as he’s at Kamukura’s side, the light level in the room should hardly matter. They’ve been with each other for years now, the silent tells of body language learned between them, and Komaeda knows that Kamukura could navigate the plane of his body even in the darkest dark.

But it’s not that dark. Not right now, anyway.

He’s been quiet about it in the days leading up to their passage, but it’s now when curiosity, anxious anticipation gets the better of Komaeda and he has to open his mouth to ask.

“Something big lies ahead, doesn’t it, Kamukura?”

“Mmh,” Kamukura hums, though not absentmindedly. He’s stood against the far wall, staring out the window, watching as the choppy waves cut into each other and the boat shifts itself under their feet, creaking and groaning.

“Are you excited?” by the tone of his voice, Komaeda certainly is. Breathy. A fever pitch.

“I am ready to finally discover which will prevail. Hope. Despair. I have been waiting many years for this.”

“Despair?” Komaeda inhales giddily.

“For you, perhaps, one of the greatest despairs of all.”

Maybe it’s something unspoken between them, what that might mean. It’s not hard to guess at, not at all. After all this time, Komaeda, who has trailed after him. Insisted unwaveringly that he belongs by Kamukura’s side. Belongs _to_ Kamukura. Was made to serve him. Followed him through chaos and rubble and sickness and health and despair after despair- a despair to end all despairs. It’s not hard to guess what that might be.

Forgetting.

There’s a quiet rustle as Komaeda picks himself up off the floor, crosses the small space between them. He slings his arms around Kamukura’s neck from behind, hanging over his shoulders, clutches him close, buries his face into the top of Kamukura’s head. Black strands tickle his nose, muffle his voice when he speaks again.

“I’m not afraid to go through the greatest despair possible, if that means I get to see hope bloom in the end, at Kamukura’s side.”

And because Kamukura knows he will not be able to participate in what lies ahead. Knows this may be the last glimpse of the ocean he ever gets, knows this is the last embrace of Komaeda’s he’ll ever feel, Kamukura brings his hand up and rests it on top of Komaeda’s own. Rubs his thumb idly over the skin there. And stares out the window.

9\. a hug that isn’t returned | Kamukoma

Kamukura doesn’t return hugs. And Komaeda would never expect that of him.

Sees the gesture as an unnecessary show of affection, no reason to offer a source of comfort when his presence alone is enough to calm Komaeda. His presence, his unwillingness to leave Komaeda’s side despite his uselessness, his unwillingness to kick Komaeda to the curb after all this time- it’s all Komaeda has to do to remind himself.

Komaeda jolts from his sleep, wide eyed and heaving in breaths as he sits, starts to shake. Comes to terms with the fact that it was _only a dream. A dream._ A nightmare, really, if he’s going to get specific and a terrible one at that.  
Terrible.  
The nuances are flooding back in horrific detail and Komaeda lets out a hiccup, a sob, hot tears rolling down his cheeks as he slides out of bed on unsteady feet, stepping blindly as his legs carry him across the room.

A glance through watery eyes lets Komaeda know that Kamukura hasn’t moved from his seat. Crossed legged and reading a book, the same place he was when Komaeda first drifted off.  
When he sees Komaeda approach, looks up briefly from his book, wordlessly he lifts it- raises his arms to make room in his lap. Lets Komaeda crawl into and settle there, curled up tightly, face pressed against his chest as he sobs.

“Isn’t it despairing?” Komaeda asks through his crying, through his smile that is starting to make his cheeks ache. He clings to Kamukura, arms wrapped around him and fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt- can’t bring himself to care if he’s wrinkling it because he’s already dampened the front with salty tracks of tears.

Kamukura says nothing. Lowers his arms and goes back to reading, words on the page illuminated by a dim lamp nearby, casting harsh shadows across his face, pausing only briefly when the crying gets so violent he reaches over, plucks a tissue out of the box and offers it silently and Komaeda sobs and sobs and sobs and well

Kamukura doesn’t return hugs. And Komaeda would never expect that of him. But it would still be nice.

15\. a ‘just to say i love you’ hug | genderbend Kamukoma

“Do you need to stop and rest?” Kamukura asks her. “We are ahead of schedule.”

“Ah, you shouldn’t worry about me,” Komaeda says through her grin and technically it’s not a lie (she would never lie outright to Kamukura)- her wellbeing is trivial, a nuisance to take care of and Kamukura should not concern herself with it. Komaeda does not deserve that.  
But of course, Kamukura can see right through her.

Even if the bright grin she’s plastered on her face doesn’t betray the way her legs and lungs are burning, fighting with every breath to get enough oxygen, Kamukura still knows.

They’ve been walking all day, with only small ten minute stops in between, and the way the light of the setting sun casts golden rays reflective on Kamukura’s hair now is quite a beautiful mirror of how it had been this morning. The same, bright bits of sun that manage to escape the thick haze of the red clouds, sky blanketed and smeared with smog and well, it might just be Komaeda’s imagination. But there’s some sort of metaphor there she knows, but she just can’t reach on the tip of her tongue.

But Kamukura would be just beautiful no matter the scenery.

“We will stop for the night,” Kamukura decides and Komaeda is tempted to fight her on it again but the tone is that of finality, so she nods in surrender, and follows Kamukura off the beaten path of the road, the concrete, guided by her chain as they begin to search the area for shelter.

Luck comes in handy for this, an industrial sized dumpster blocking the better part of the entrance to a small alley. Covered by overhangs, they have access to the fire escape that’s been mostly mangled from the third story upward, but after a quick inspection, the second story room it gives way to is unoccupied and still habitable for sleeping.  
No gas, no electricity, no water of course, but Komaeda is all the more happy to watch as she sits on one of two plastic crates they’ve dragged over to use as chairs, humming pleasantly, the food they’ve scavenged heating up over the makeshift barrel fire in the desolate alleyway to cook outside.  
Warm meals are a rarity. But fires aren’t so uncommon that someone might come looking to hurt them. Kamukura must be in a good mood, since they’re so ahead of schedule with travel.

“Don’t get so close,” Kamukura warns her because Komaeda has taken to tilting her head upward, watching the occasional ember fleck off and escape into the air as a distraction.

“Ah, sorry,” Komaeda scoots back, out of the range of smoke blowing into her face, of a stray spark landing in her hair and igniting it, of leaning too far in and touching the scalding metal. “Kamukura really is too kind, putting up with me.”

Kamukura hums, tilts her head, and the shifting weight makes her hair cascade over her shoulder.  
“It is… fine,” she decides on.

But is it really though?

For Kamukura to stop in her journey, just for Komaeda’s sake. To settle in for the night when she could clearly keep walking for miles. To do the things Komaeda can’t now that she’s down one hand- helping her get dressed, helping to work the knots out of her hair on the days they’re fortunate enough to find something like a bottle of conditioner and running, clean water. To bandage her injuries, to soothe her limbs when they ache- is it really fine for Kamukura to do that? Especially when Komaeda is supposed to be the one serving _her_? Serving kindness, serving hope.

_Her_ hope.

Komaeda shifts then, leaning and reaching over to where Kamukura is sitting on her own crate, stretches out her arms across the small gap and wraps them around Kamukura’s middle. Presses her face into Kamukura’s shoulder, and relaxes. Just a little.  
Kamukura doesn’t have to ask what it’s for. She’s aware already, of course. But Komaeda will still remind her.

“I love you.”

“I know.”


	3. Chapter 3

23\. the final hug | Komahina

“Hello, Hinata.”

“What do you want, Komaeda?”

Komaeda grins thinly. No sense in doing anything other than getting right to the point, he supposes. Pleasantries have no place here, where things are decidedly unpleasant- Komaeda imagines that no amount of ‘how are you’s and ‘nice weather we’re having’s would be able to remedy that. Would be able to remedy what he’s about to do.

He takes in Hinata’s face. A pointed scowl he’s trying to stuff down, but can’t quite hide it all the way. Brows drawn together, in exasperation, in irritation, in fear, in perhaps some combination, Hinata is clearly not happy to see him. Komaeda has trouble reading people sometimes, but this much, he can tell.

He doesn’t want to die alone, unloved. But in the end, everybody dies alone.

There’s that spark of hatred, festering within him when he thinks of how Hinata had lied to him- but more importantly, had lied to everyone else. Had fooled all the other ultimates into thinking he was worthy of their time, and attention.  
But Komaeda knows more than any of them do now. He has no qualms with lying to the ultimates anymore.

With lying to Hinata. An innocent bystander swept up in a fight that was greater than himself. Too much for him to comprehend.

“Do you need something, or are you just going to stand there?”

Ah.

Komaeda blinks.  
He thinks about the warehouse and rope and poison and knives and fire and a spear with his name on it, destined to drive right through his midsection. He thinks about the expression that might be twisted into Hinata’s face when he’s found.  
Hinata might never forgive him for this one. But for someone who has tainted hope in the name of despair, forgiveness is a difficult thing to come by anyway.

“Just one thing,” he tells Hinata.

And then Komaeda hugs him.

It’s an awkward thing. Long limbs that he’d never had the sort of grace to control, so when he wraps them around Hinata, it ends up feeling forced. Hinata tenses against him, and really, Komaeda can’t blame him for that. He hugs Hinata, fingers twisted lightly into the fabric of his white shirt and just when Hinata begins to relax, Komaeda pulls himself away. He doesn’t deserve reciprocation- doesn’t want Hinata to ache with the thought of their hug once he’s gone. Doesn’t deserve to be able to remember the way Hinata smells, the way his hair had brushed Komaeda’s cheek when he’d been embraced. Doesn’t deserve any final, fleeting thoughts except for his own wretchedness.

“O- oh…” Hinata says after the pause that is just a moment too long. “What was that for?”

“Nothing.”

11\. a hug for good luck | Kamukoma

It’s just his luck, really.

Kamukura had made his way into the desolate office building, which was abandoned in a rush, if the way chairs are hastily knocked over are any indication, with Komaeda trailing behind. Overturned filing cabinets, manila folders scattering the floor, spilled coffee cups and a printer, still waiting for the paper tray to be refilled- Kamukura steps swiftly over the mess and begins rifling through drawers, picking through the junk on top of the desks in order to find something useful.  
He sends Komaeda to the side with a dismissive wave of his hand, over to one of the nice leather seats pressed into the corner that has only minimal rips and stains of carnage.

They haven’t been walking for very long, but still the night sky visible through one of the shattered windows, and the quiet rustling of Kamukura as he searches is enough to let Komaeda doze off.

In the quiet haze he drifts, eyes occasionally flittering open because even in sleep he can’t escape the worry, the fear that one day Kamukura will grow bored of him and leave him to rot. It’s bound to happen. But today is not that day. Because each time he peers over, Kamukura is still there. Undoubtedly, unwaveringly.

And even if he hadn’t been snoozing, Kamukura would still have been the first to react when the bombs went off.

Because Kamukura is faster and more perceptive and really, everything Komaeda is not, that by the time Komaeda realizes what’s going on, Kamukura is already by his side.  
The deafening sound rips through him, jolts his eyes open, as the building starts to waver around them. Tiles from the drop ceiling falling to the floor, light fixtures and rubble and all the overturned junk scattered across their paths that Kamukura makes the judgement call to stay put. That it will be safer to hunker down than it would be to get taken out by falling debris trying to run through the twisted maze for the exit.

It all happens so fast and “hold on to me,” is all he has to tell Komaeda, even though it sounds funny and muffled he can still hear it over the ringing in his right ear, Komaeda who has gone silent and wide eyed but still grinning because his smile never falters, even in the face of something so terrifying. If he were to die here, that would be fine, he thinks, but still nothing could sway him from doing as he’s told.  
Clings to Kamukura by slinging arms around his neck as Kamukura moves swift, one hand braced against Komaeda’s back to keep their chests flush together (where Kamukura can surely feel just how fast his heart is fluttering beneath his rib cage), the other arm working to prop something thick, something sturdy above them on a slant to catch the brunt of the falling debris, braced against what he calculates is the strongest, most heavily fortified wall.

Not that Kamukura’s luck would let him die, of course. But apparently it has wavered enough to let some of Komaeda’s bad luck creep in, to let them be caught off guard in the middle of an explosion.

Another series of loud sounds rip through the air, down to the bone and everything shakes around them, Komaeda clinging even tighter.  
It must be too much for Komaeda, weak and frail as he is. Getting overexcited, a heart that’s prone to stuttering in high stress situations, he must pass out because he doesn’t remember when the building stops shaking. Doesn’t remember when Kamukura deems it safe enough to push the table off of them, crawls out from under the rubble with Komaeda in tow. Limp digits no longer twisted into Kamukura’s blazer but Kamukura can adjust for it well enough. Doesn’t remember the trip out of the building but he comes too well enough once they’re in the street.

Lifts his head, dazed, face to face with Kamukura whose features are smeared with dust and dirt, bits of plaster and asbestos stuck in his hair. But an immediate assessment tells him that they’re both unharmed.  
Physically, at least. The moment his consciousness comes into him fully, Komaeda can’t help the apology that comes pouring out of his mouth.

A pitchy “I’m sorry, Kamukura,” trying to keep his breaths steady as to not pass out a second time and burden Kamukura even further but maybe it wouldn’t be a burden after all because passed out at least he would _shut up_ , even quiet dead weight is better than the useless apologies he’s spouting now. But he’s greedy. Selfish. Grips tight to the fabric of Kamukura’s clothes because being carried is nice, even if he could probably walk now, the steady shifting as Kamukura puts one foot in front of the other, is grounding him.

“Why are you sorry?” Kamukura asks him and Komaeda bites back a pitiful laugh because of course Kamukura already knows why- Kamukura knows everything. But if having the explanation dragged out of him is his punishment, so be it.

“My luck,” Komaeda grins, watery. “My luck put you in that situation. I wouldn’t have died- probably. My luck is never that kind. So you didn’t have to protect me. But you still did. And you could have gotten hurt. I-” He swallows. “I couldn’t live with myself if Kamukura got hurt because of my luck. I’m a timebomb. A disaster waiting to happen. You shouldn’t keep me around. You-”

“Komaeda,” Kamukura says. Shifts Komaeda’s weight. “I am fine.”

“But-“

“I am uninjured. Your luck did not harm me.”

“But it shouldn’t even have the chance. You’re too valuable- too important. I’m not worth the hassle of keeping around. I-“ Komaeda squirms. Suddenly caught up in the reality of his words and realizing for the hundredth time that Kamukura really _should_ just leave him to die, fights to be put down and working himself up into a hysterical fit and.

And well.

A crying Komaeda can be quite inconvenient to deal with.

Kamukura stills him with, of all things, a hug.  
Adjusts the way he’s being held. Perfect balance perfect strength perfect everything- brings an arm up and around and-

A hug?

Being pulled closer, the tight grip around him, it takes Komaeda a full five seconds to process the gesture and once he does, he wheezes. Melts into the touch and rests his chin on Kamukura’s shoulder, shaking his head.

“I don’t understand.”

“A hug,” Kamukura explains simply. Komaeda’s arms wrap shakily around him in return as he lets himself continue to be carried. “For good luck.”

“For-“ Komaeda’s eyes widen. “Kamukura must know it doesn’t work like that. Luck is-“

“ _A hug_ ,” Kamukura says again. “ _For good luck_.”

“Ah. Of course,” Komaeda mumbles into his shoulder. “For good luck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think this will be the last batch! hope u enjoyed. feel free to send requests to my tumblr kidcarma and like no promises but if something particular strikes me ill see what i can do! bonus points if its komahina/kamukoma


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